Poll: What add features you wait for in CM2?

[Private Dietz]

I would like to see the game finished.

[Sergei]

I'd also like to see a shrunk US Army OOB, only playable against Russians to make some interesting "Patton goes for Moscow" scenarios.

I mentioned ski troops earlier, but I'll also mention pulling light guns on sleds. Skier-drawn sleds were, at least among Finns, standard equipment for crews.

There could also be, for winter scenarios with heavy snow, light snow tiles. Defenders usually dug "trenches" into snow so they could find from camp to their positions fast, even in night and with minimum exposure to enemy observation. This is also used to allow guns being moved into secondary firing positions.

BTS also must include the beasts of prey, such as wolves, bears, wolverines and siberian tigers. I recall wolves ate one Gebirgsjäger division during winter 1943. No rodents were involved. And if they do include horses, then they also must include reindeers. Reindeers would be essentially similar to horses, except for having a horn-bonus in close combat.

[Slapdragon]

More realistic buildings: What we have was a good compromise, but it is really hard to map a village with the limited options for buildings.

Realistic water modeling. Right now, you have ford or noford, but water could be given levels of depth, with depth allowing fording.

Streams and gullies. Their are ways to sim this now, but an actual stream of wash tile would be nice.

Tiaga- Russian Tiaga has little undergrowth, being like a "pine desert". Vehicles can move through Tiaga.

3D crops. Wheat is a 3D object 1 level high, as is corn.

Civilian peices that can be programmed (ie. Run around like freaks, hide in buildings, run away from fighting). Not so much for the Eastern Front, were civilian casualties were not worried about, but for the western front where both sides got concerned by civilians.

Foot paths- Give forests actual foot paths.

[deanco]

Hi Runyan99,

I must respectfully disagree with some of your points, while at the same time, I can understand, and even share, your concern. In particular, your implied assertion that if a "gamey" trend is started chez BTS, that it is a given that the quality and attention to detail will diminish. Just because this happened at Talonsoft does not necessesarily mean that it will happen at BTS. I got the courage to ask for the "gamey" features just because I am completely convinced of BTS's commitment to realism. I would be the last to ask for something like that if I thought it would affect other aspects of the game.

Finally, you said,

"Either the focus is on realism...or it is not. Any middle ground is dangerous."

I beg to differ. The middle ground is where compromises are hammered out that benefit the greatest number of people. Even BTS states that their wargame is not 100% realistic, because this is an impossible goal. I'm sure BTS visited the middle ground a few times in making CM.

So let me make myself perfectly clear. If BTS has to divert precious manpower from historic research, testing, etc. so that I can see that Jonsey has recieved the Purple Heart and is now a Veteran sharpshooter, then I DON'T want that feature. OTOH, if sales have been that good...why not hire some outside help to do it?? My 2cts.

DeanCo--

[Runyan99]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

3D crops. Wheat is a 3D object 1 level high, as is corn. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh yeah. I want this too.

It doesn't even have to be a solid field of grain. Here is my 2-polygon per tile idea: How about two perpendicular, translucent (like the current building walls), lines of grain per tile, which form an X in the middle of a tile.

Many of these tiles put together might actually look a bit like a field of grain from the 1 or 2 perspective, and at any rate it would at least give a way of visualizing the height of the grain in the field.

P.S. Deanco. Now that we've got a point and a counterpoint on the "awards" discussion. I'm dropping the subject there.

[Hundminen]

One more wish for CM2:

The ability to lock PBEM games to camera view 1 or 2 only, giving a soldier's eye view of the entire battle. I've played PBEM's where we both promised to stay low level, but when you have several games going on at once, it's easy to mess up and go with birds-eye camera.

By the way, does anybody know if BTS has stated which features they are planning to incorporate, and what the status is with CM2?

[L4Pilot]

How about tile by tile FOW - in other words if you haven't seen a tile, or don't have a unit with LOS to that tile, you don't know what it is. Might be "greyed" out on the map. Roads and villages might show up in "schematic" form to represent info available on maps.

[Slapdragon]

Throw in with the other terrain types, detailed bridges. Give us a suspension bridge, a pier bridge, and bridges that block LOS.

[Hundminen]

Excellent idea L4Pilot!

In fact, this may be one aspect where Age of Empires is actually more realistic than CM!

Although, if camera angle was restricted to LOS of friendly troops, then that might serve same purpose.

[Slapdragon]

The only problem with blacked out FOW is that Europe was the most mapped continent of its time (The French survey started 200 years before the US Survey). You may not know where a field is, or if a clump of woods still exists, but you know all the hills, rivers, towns, most of the roads, and all of the railroads. Unlike explorers, you are fighting over land fought over a dozen times since 1801, that really has not changed that much before the 1960s with the urban explosion.

So the current FOW is probably way more realistic.

[Compassion]

I would like to see purchable armor units. NOt individual tanks, but whole platoons... or maybe companies possibly with support units. THese full armor units should have command and control similar tothey way infantry is handled. Perhaps even more c&c rules such as seperate c&c rules for unbuttoned/radio capable, buttoned /radio capable, unbuttoned/no radio, etc.

...and of course I would also like to see extensive habitrail networks...

[This message has been edited by Compassion (edited 09-11-2000).]

[elementalwarre]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Slapdragon:

The only problem with blacked out FOW is that Europe was the most mapped continent of its time <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

er. CM2's the eastern front. the USSR deliberately kept road maps hard to get, let alone full topo maps. given that, requiring LOS to accurately map an area would be a useful option

for western europe, well - were there detailed topo maps of the hurtgen forest, or other relatively remote areas? even if they existed, how current were they during a war?

[Slapdragon]

I am more basing this on extant histories. Both Gantner and MacDonald refer to being lost on route marches, but never refer to having problems knowing what is around the bend as in, is their a river over that hill. Each reference to combat navigation implies a great trust in their maps. In the Hurtgen, which was well mapped (by the French Ordnance Survey in 1850 to start) it is a problem, of course, what is around the bend is more Hurtgen - no problem.

On the Eastern Front the best source is the author of Soldier, and they never had problems with artillery fires in support of advancing troops, except when the troops out ran them. Germans had maps of Russia, just not 1:25000 quads like the US had of France.

Thus it is likely a lot of work for little realistic gain. Of ocurse, if the aim of CM2 is to move away from the realism format and add more gaming conventions to add suspense or story lines (Damn, we have to assault a hill next! No one told us!) then it may be worth the effort. I would rather see more varied terrain and added terrain to CM1 than this feature, which is at best dubious in its simulation value.

I just don't find literature to support

[Slapdragon]

That said, if the game covered the jungles of China and Asia then I think hidden terrain would work well -- It really was not mapped well until the 1960s and there is references to Chindits having to take celestial fixes to even know within 100 kilometers where they were.

[Phil the Dill]

A replay of the whole battle would be good

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"Your Mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries"

[PawBroon]

Recrewing Abandonned vehicules would be my absolute Fav.

I'm quite confident about BTS doing what's necessary for tiles and urban combat because they WILL want to play Stalingrad too.

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Either he's dead or my watch has stopped

[PzKpfw 1]

Ooops forgot other then Russian's, the addition of Russian female Snipers. This is one area left uncovered mostly as the Russians did use females in combat roles, fighter pilots, tank crew etc.

Regards, John Waters

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Notice: Spelling mistakes left in for people who need to correct others to make their life fulfilled.

[Dilger]

CAMPAIGNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Stephen Smith]

Huge maps. I don't know how huge (10x10 km?) but huge. My own interest is NOT to have huge maps on which to have huge battles -rather, I want more maneuver, and more long term decisions (attack down this road, or that one five kilometers away? When do I commit my reserves to one road, knowing that when I do, they too far away to support the other road? etc etc). Huge enough to allow me to use scouts and scouting vehicles to probe the enemy defense in order to find weak spots. Huge enough to have multiplayer, with each player in charge of a battalion+ (say brigade vs brigade with six players).

Steve

[Malmvig]

Removal of the beyond overload

sentence!

I would like to be able to create scenarios for the whole WWII.

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Malmvig

I'am not leaving either

[Sgt.Rock]

I would like to see two main things.

1. The abillity have the games listed by order of date they happened (as in East Front).

2. Tracer fires. I havent seen this discussed,(but from personal experince in winter training) I have noticed that tracers seen to start quite a few small fires even with snow on the ground. It might be difficult to model but would add a whole lot of fun.

[marcusm]

How about a 1:1 map of Russia with a max 2 terrapoints of purchases?

I allways thought Scorched Earth had too few counters.

<g>

Marcus

[Diceman]

Tanks to provide cover and block line of sight.

I really liked the U.S. vs Russia idea also.

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Pair-O-Dice

"Once a Diceman, Always a Diceman."

[Gregory Deych]

Ah, female snipers. From what I've read on the subject, which is admittedly fragmentary, points to their main contribution being in areas other then sniping. There were of course exceptions.

[willmontgomery]

It seems likely that this thread will become arbitrarily long over time. I won't bother to disagree with suggestions that do not interest me, nor will I bother to second (or third or tenth or whatever) suggestions that I agree with. There are too many, and this thread will rapidly become so long that it will become daunting for a new reader to take in. So to cut to the chase:

First point: I would like to see some help for artillery spotters. I am not now nor have I ever been an artillery spotter, but I would think they could hide while doing their job. As it is, when they give a fire order they stand up and wave "Kill me! Kill me! It's the only way to stave off the rain of death that is soon to fall."

Second point: it may be that giving sequential or conditional orders would provide too much micromanagement, e.g. shoot here until this happens, then shoot here, etc., but coordination of artillery was/is SOP (I think). Admittedly a lot of coordination was pre-battle (i.e. "The artillery barrage will last five minutes, followed by smoke in front of the enemy positions to cover your advance. Good luck men!"), but right now I cannot model this by any means. I have to spend precious clock time working my spotters into position or else the guns cannot shoot at all. As soon as the fire order is called in more precious clock time ticks away while my opponent has a chance to detect and kill the spotters. When (not if) a spotter is killed, his guns are out of action rather than responding to another spotter. My spotter cannot say, "Shoot here for five minutes, then follow with smoke at 50 meters shorter range. I'll hang here as long as I can to adjust fire, but even if I have to get out of Dodge, the mission calls for five minutes of fire for effect followed by smoke."

Now I realize that that last example may not be what spotters really are/were for. My point is that having such a plan would be pre-battle SOP, and I can neither issue those orders pre-battle nor model them during the battle using the game mechanics provided. In my admittedly unqualified opinion, the CM engine seems strong enough that I can use it to learn about and test WWII-era small-unit tactics, many of which would still apply today. Right now it seems that de jure and de facto limitations on artillery are getting in the way.